


sometimes the only way out (is through)

by sakaamotos



Series: september's children [3]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Depression, I present to you more fic in this universe of mine, M/M, November 20 Interrogation (Persona 5), Post-November 20 Interrogation (Persona 5), Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, happy 11/20 p5 fandom, not as dark as the tags make it out to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 12:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakaamotos/pseuds/sakaamotos
Summary: the interrogation room. it left its marks on both akira and goro. but they're going to be ok.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: september's children [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1528397
Comments: 4
Kudos: 109





	sometimes the only way out (is through)

**Author's Note:**

> happy 11/20 y'all. this was not beta'd, because this had to go up today. she can yell at me later.
> 
> title comes from Bob Dylan by Fall Out Boy

When Sae shows Goro the phone, he’s quite frankly confused. 

He’s just spent twenty minutes in a bathroom upstairs, vomiting, as dread sunk into bones about the fact that he was going to have to shoot Akira. 

He wonders if Sae can see that his hands are shaking.

But just before Sae locks the phone, Goro sees the flash of an opening app, and then feels the familiar pain in his head that indicates that he’s entered the Metaverse. He sees that Sae is also grasping at her head and he realizes what’s happened.

He’s been found out.

But more importantly, the thieves found a way to keep Akira safe.

The relief that flows through him at that thought, it’s almost like the hit of a good drug.

He wraps up his conversation with Sae quickly after that. He’s stopped shaking, now that he knows that the Akira that he will face in the interrogation room isn’t the real one. And that the guard he will shoot is also not real.

No one is going to die.

Goro won’t have to live his life with Akira’s blood on his hands.

He won’t have to live knowing he killed the boy he loves.

He straightens his tie and marches down the hall with a confidence he does not truly have, ready to play a game that he’s only barely convinced he’ll win. And he has no idea that in reality, Akira is praying that he screwed up just enough, so that Goro will walk through that door, and finally put him out of his misery for good.

\--

During the sort-of intervention, there was one thing that Akira said, that has echoed through Goro’s mind. It’s etched itself onto his brain and when he’s having another sleepless night, worrying about Akira, the words play in his head like an old favorite song.

“ _ I still went with the plan that was going to likely put a bullet in my brain. _ ”

It makes him shudder every time he thinks about it.

He can’t believe that he’s spent all these years thinking that the Metaverse was an unasked for gift in the exact moment he needed it, while Akira was hoping the exact opposite. Hoping that the plan would fail and that he would get shot.

Looking back though, he’s not entirely sure how that plan of theirs even managed to work. Especially when the biggest obstacle in the whole thing was Akira himself, even if they didn’t know that at the time.

And what’s worse, Goro can’t say for certain that he wouldn’t have actually shot Akira if it had come down to it. Even back then, he loved Akira, but he was so dead-set on revenge, that he knows that he would’ve tossed that love to the side to bring Shido to his knees. The thought of that, of his willingness back then to actually kill someone, it weighs on him all too often, especially when Akira seems to be at his worst.

Like today.

He doesn’t need a calendar to know what day it is.

Akira called off work this morning, and shortly after, asked Goro to leave the bedroom. Goro isn’t offended, it isn’t the first time Akira has asked for space, but today, Goro also can’t help but worry that Akira is going to do something incredibly stupid.

He’s been in therapy and Goro has attended a few of the sessions; his therapist is a good one, she doesn’t push on things that Akira absolutely refuses to talk about, like Goro’s supposed death or how he willingly went to his almost death in an interrogation room. But on the stuff that Akira is willing to talk about, she does wonderfully. Goro has her number on his speed dial in case of real bad days, and today, he’s wondering if he’s going to need it.

Sometime around noon, Goro hears the bedroom door finally open and quietly sighs in relief. He’s in the kitchen, making himself a small lunch, and tells Akira that much when he hears footsteps going back and forth, like Akira is looking for him. A few seconds later, Akira appears in the entryway to the kitchen, and Goro looks up from his cooking, and frowns in concern at what he sees.

Red.

On Akira’s hands.

Akira, confused at what Goro is looking at, looks down at his own hands, and frowns as well.

“I...I don’t remember…?” Goro turns off the stove, lunch can wait.

“Did you just wake up?” Akira looks up at him and nods, which makes Goro feel a little better. There’s a been a few incidences of this, where if Akira is having a real bad dream, his hands will clench up in his sleep and his nails accidently cut him. It’s not intentional, so Goro tries to not worry about it too much, and resolves again to get Akira to cut his nails more often. “Hey, listen, it’s fine, it was an accident.” Akira nods again, but his attention returns to his hands. Goro grabs the first aid kit that he’s taken to keeping in the kitchen and gently moves Akira from the entryway to the sink. “Did you have a nightmare?” A third nod. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Akira sighs, but starts to talk.

“It was the interrogation room.”

Goro nods, Akira’s therapist has told him that nonverbal encouragement is good to help Akira talk when stuff like this happens, and he’s trying, even if he feels a bit like a bobblehead while doing so.

“Only, if was different. You were the one in the chair and I…” Akira stops and manages to shrink in on himself, as if he can physically run from the memories of the dream. Goro rubs a hand down his back, while his other hand is testing the water from the faucet to make sure it won’t sting too badly when he washes Akira’s hands before bandaging them up.

“It’s ok Akira, I’m here, ok?” Akira nods and leans bodily into Goro, obviously still a bit lost from the dream and how real it clearly felt to him.

“I know, I’m just...I’m so tired of this.” Goro tests the water with his hand again and determines that it’s ok enough to not cause Akira too much more discomfort, while his other hand continues to rub up and down Akira’s back. “It’s been months since I started therapy and it’s actually been great and I don’t want to die anymore, but my brain keeps tossing shit like this at me, like  _ it _ hasn’t gotten the memo, and I’m so fucking tired of it.”

Goro feels his own brain short circuit for a second, during Akira’s little rant, because did Akira just say that he  _ doesn’t want to die _ ?

Akira seems to notice that Goro.exe has stopped though, because when his brain kicks back into gear, Akira is looking at him with one eyebrow raised higher than the other, a mask of perfectly confused concern.

“Umm, did I say something weird? Are you  _ ok _ ?” Goro laughs, because of course Akira doesn’t realize that he just put one of Goro’s  _ biggest _ fears to rest while ranting, which seems to be par for the course for them lately.

“Yeah, I’m fine and no, you didn’t say anything weird. Now, wash your hands so I can wrap them up.” Akira gives him a look like he doesn’t exactly believe him, but does as Goro says, grumbling the whole time about how his brain is a scrub and it can meet him in the pit.

Once his hands are clean, Goro quickly spreads antibacterial ointment on them and wraps them in the thin bandages that Takemi has been supplying him with for the past several months since she told him exactly what they were for. He’s gotten efficient at wrapping Akira’s hands so that he can still use them despite the bandaging and it feels like no time has passed before Goro declares that the wrapping is good and Akira is free.

“Thanks. Sorry for scaring you with that, I forgot to clip my nails this week.” Akira looks down at his hands and sighs. “Maybe once a week, like I don’t know, Sunday or something, you just chain me down and clip them for me.” Goro shakes his head as he puts away the first aid kit.

“Something tells me that you’re just angling for me to tie you up and turn it into something kinky.” He can tell that Akira is grinning, even if he isn’t looking at him to see it for himself.

“And if I am?” Goro can hear the teasing in his voice. He looks over his shoulder and shoots a shark-tooth grin right back at Akira.

“Take me out for dinner first and we’ll see.” Akira laughs and god, it makes Goro fall just a little bit more in love.

“Fine.” Akira crosses the kitchen and comes up right behind Goro, placing his hands on his hips, and pressing a kiss to his cheek as he does. “How does sushi sound?”

“Not conveyor belt?” There’s a chuckle right into his ear as Akira’s arms wrap around his middle.

“Never conveyer belt.” 

Goro grins.

“Sushi sounds wonderful.”

**Author's Note:**

> goro akechi has never forgiven sae for all the conveyor belt sushi and i will die on this hill. but see! akira is getting better! even if his definition of getting better is to be a sassy shit to his boyfriend, who is just trying to love him. 
> 
> a joke that didn't make it into this fic was akira calling him and goro "uhaul lesbians", since they move in together kind of quickly, but maybe one day, that joke will make it into a fic and goro will realize that "joker" wasn't just a codename, but like 85.7% of akira's personality.
> 
> you can find me on twitter @ twinskelletons or on tumblr @ sakaamotos


End file.
